Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Just heard that my song "Smash Thru" has debuted on the KiwiFM Weekly Top Ten at #10 -choice!

Also, got my first review of the EP, from Groove Guide. "Ba Ba Boom is the latest release for Dub Asylum and the five tracks are hiving and jiving and the perfect selection of songs to shake your booty to.

The majority of the music is written by Peter McLennan and he is also the man behind the mixing and engineering on the tracks but the EP also features collaborations with some of NZ’s finest. Musically it opens with “Smash Thru” which features the incredible vocal and lyric writing styles of MC Kyla. Such an upbeat banging track that I’d be surprised if it doesn’t make it onto indie radio stations top 10s.

The second track features the horn section of the WBC and there’s something friendly about the track that reminds me of Sesame Street in a very good way! The real dub starts to shine through from tracks 2-4 and it gets mellower and slower as it goes on finishing with a beautiful track that features Sandy Mill on vocals. Love it!" - Fleur Jack, Groove Guide #237, 17 Sept 08.

Kanye and his crazy comb-voiceHeard the new Kanye single? Dude is all autotune... it's hideous... "On the finished single ['Lockdown'], it sounds like he’s singing through a plastic comb with some toilet paper wrapped around it. Link.

Money money moneyThanks to Robyn for posting this on the Public Address forums... It clearly explains just how the financial mess in the US came about.

"There's an hour-long special on NPR's All Thing's Considered radio show which explains the subprime crisis in simply, entertainingly yet thoroughly.

'This American Life producer Alex Blumberg teams up with NPR's Adam Davidson for the entire hour to tell the story—the surprisingly entertaining story—of how the U.S. got itself into a housing crisis. They talk to people who were actually working in the housing, banking, finance and mortgage industries, about what they thought during the boom times, and why the bust happened. And they explain that a lot of it has to do with the giant global pool of money.' There's a transcript too if you want to read it."I read the transcript, well worth it. Made a lot more sense than the various long-winded reports in the Weekend Herald.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Free Dub Asylum download for you!Listened to my new EP yet? It's good, I tell ya! Here's what the folks at Radio RDU's The Joint had to say... "Stand out track for us is the heavyweight title track "Ba Ba Boom!" - with its skankalicious horns it sounds like something King Tubby wrote for a marching band."

Anyways, if you want to get a taster of my new tunes, the folks at Amplifier can help you out... read on...

Papa was a rolling stoneFrom Funky 16 Corners - listen to the original, and a beautiful reggae version by the Pioneers. Other audioblog tributes here, here, and here.

I was digging thru my records last night, and damn, I own a ton of Norman Whitfield productions. Three Rose Royce albums, five Temptations albums, a Rare Earth disc, some Marvin Gaye, and the soundtrack for Car Wash...

Whitfield revolutionised the classic Motown sound at a time when its star was starting to fade, introducing a psychedelic soul sound most famously heard on 'Papa was a rolling stone'. His extended soul-workouts are something to be heard, like Sunrise off Carwash, or Zoom of the Temptations' album '1990'. Echoed strings, brass, wahwah guitar, minimalist bass plucking - it's a sound with so much space.

He also wrote (in collaboration with songwriting partner Barrett Strong) songs like War, Heard it on the grapevine, Papa was a rolling stone, Ball of confusion, Aint too proud to beg, He was really saying something, so many more...

ADDED: "My thing was to out-Sly Sly Stone," Whitfield told Marvin Gaye' biographer, David Ritz. "Sly was definitely sly, and his sound was new, his grooves were incredible, he borrowed a lot from rock. He caught the psychedelic thing. He was bad. I could match him though, rhythm for rhythm, horn for horn." Link.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

"Vinyl is back!" MSM angle, version #342See here. Wall St Journal - "The 12-inch vinyl LP record - in decline for the past two decades, clung to only by DJs, audiophile nerds and collectors - is making a stand amid the digital revolution."Wow, really?

Previously... "New York Times Offers Yet Another Lesson In How To Write A “Vinyl Is Back” Trend Piece" link

Sonseed: The Last Word (Complete With Suggested Last Meal)Link to Christian ska band video from a while back, and the response, via Idolator. "Over the weekend we got further evidence of the video's veracity via a very heated e-mail from one Salvatore Polichetti. The subject line? "How full of shit are you? Lots!"

Wale's mixtape about nothing - Wale meets JerryA while back, rapper Wale put out a A Mixtape About Nothing, inspired by the tv show Seinfeld. A few weeks back, Wale got to meet Jerry Seinfeld after one of Jerry's shows...

"Me: Hey I’m Dan Weisman, really nice to meet you, this is WaleJerry: Oh, Wale. Yes. I really liked your thing.Wale: Thanks man, that means a lot. I really liked your thing too.Jerry: (turns to road manager) This is Wale, that rapper who made the mashup mixtape thing with the theme song and bits from the show. I really liked it; listened to it quite a few times.Wale: That means so much man, thank you. I’m a huge fan and the show was so inspiring to me.Me: You weren’t offended by the mixtape?Jerry: No! I’m a comedian. I loved it.Wale: That’s great cuz I became kinda famous off it." Go see the photo.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Murdered Mangere officer was in Split Enz. "The undercover police officer murdered outside a suspected P lab in South Auckland was once a member of Split Enz.

Sergeant Don Wilkinson was shot dead yesterday morning after he and a colleague tried to put a tracking device on a car outside a suspected P lab.

Superintendent Ted Cox has spoken to the officer's mum and dad and they have told him how proud they are of their son and the work that he did. Police also said Sergeant Wilkinson was a keen guitarist, even playing lead for Split Enz in their early days.

The officer has had a varied career working in places like Antarctica and worked for the UN in Bosnia." 12 Sept, 17.19 NewsTalkZB

A number other news-sites, like NZcity, picked it up (see here), buta brief search on Google will show you that the guitarist in question was Wally Wilkinson, and Don Wilkinson was 11 when Split Enz started in 1973. Newstalk ZB have since amended their report.

"a record that's fresher than anyone might have expected from an outfit that got its start in the '80s." Future Chaos is a synth-rich album boasting guest vocals from Jon Spencer, Mark Lanegan, Fujiya & Miyagi's David Best, Toob, and Paul Conboy.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Menahan St BandI got my hands on a copy of this wickedly funky album after Sharon Jones and the Dapkings were down this way back in March. Tommy Brenneck plays guitar in the Dapkings, and this is his band and damn, they hot.

"The MSB sound is less like what the Dap-Kings themselves turn out and more on what I'd call "soul meets cool jazz" tip, not unlike what Leon Michels has done with the El Michels Affair over at Truth and Soul and not surprisingly, many T&S players are featured in the MSB."

"Many of you will remember them as the group sampled on Jay-Z's "Roc Boys". As legend has it, their song "Make The Road By Walking" was discovered by Diddy's production team at some point in between their presumably lengthy cheesecake runs. Tommy Brenneck, the founder of the band, has been quoted as saying that Jay-Z laughed at him when he asked if MSB could get a well-deserved shout-out on the joint. "

Listen here, or here. Album out on Dunham Records (Daptone's sub-label) Oct 14.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

DJ Mujava - Township funkThis tune is going to be everywhere in a minute. Watch the video over here and check the Ashley Beedle edit. Full release on 12" out thru Warp, Sept 15 (or digital right now - try iTunes). Hat tip to Jubt.

From Warp's site... "21 year old Mujava got his break when taxi drivers - who had heard him play on community radio and act as independent grassroots music distributors in South Africas urban townships - started spreading his sound in their cab stereos and selling CDs they had acquired from visits to his house directly to their customers accross Pretoria."

"How the Music Business Spent the [US] Summer Killing Itself"snip... "All in all, it's been a depressing summer for the delusional record industry. We're seeing a total disconnect between labels' unrealistic, old-school revenue expectations and what the market can bear. On the streaming-music front in particular, the sad reality is that advertising revenue isn't, and may never be, there to fully support the music industry's wishful-thinking profit margins.

As Advertising Age Editor Jonah Bloom said to me last week, labels "can't help looking at what they used to earn from a big band's latest release and wondering why they can't score that. ... The trick is to get your costs in line with your anticipated sales based on current revenue rather than former revenue." Link,hat tip to Nigel.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Outsourced.Spotted at Coolfer "Today it was announced that Warner Music Group will distribution and market physical product for EMI in Southeast Asia [Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea and Thailand]. The companies have had a similar arrangement for India, the Middle East and North Africa since 2005. I was wondering about North America, not smaller and developing markets, but I think such partnerships here are inevitable. A permanent reduction in distribution workforce would have considerable cost savings. Since the number of labels and the number of titles released are not growing, physical distribution needs to be rightsized."

Saturday, September 06, 2008

You freak meSo, late Friday arvo call, and what do you know - I've got tickets for the Crosstown Revue. Yay! Off to see Supergroove and guests at the mighty Civic. Two sets, intermission at a gig, seated venue hmmm..

First set starts with Supergroove joined by Gin Wigmore. What great songs! Word is she's just signed a record deal for the US. Not hard to see why, she is a huge talent. A few Supergroove numbers, then they try out a new song that is... new. Kinda midtempo rock tune, with a chorus that includes Che singing something about "when the shitstorm hits you..." Moving along, Hollie Smith comes out, and sits at the keys and wails thru a few of her numbers, ably backed by Supergroove. The crowd love her. And then its intermission. Strange thing - no-one at the gig in Supergroove t-shirts. Time was, back in the early 90s, you couldnt walk thru town without seeing someone in their tshirts with that logo on. They were everywhere.

Set two opens with the curtain coming up to reveal Scribe sitting on a stool mid-stage, with Supergroove on stage playing a moody intro that shifts into his song Stop The Music, with Gin Wigmore tastefully filling in for that pitched-up vocal sample (wacky ol P-Money). Straight outta that and into Tim and Nick on the horns, honking out that distinctive three-note riff that is Not Many. You get Scribe rapping, with Che and Karl backing him. Choice. Scribe even lets Karl handle lead for one of the choruses, leading my mate to suggest "Look, its Donald Duck onstage!" He does flail most energetically, that boy.

Karl asked the audience for a round of applause for the Civic, and then Che added "Put your hands up if you saw Star Wars here, return of the Jedi" - a few folks cheered and then he laughed and said "heh, you old!" There was a lovely version of Che's tune Misty Frequencies earlier too, with bass, keys, drums and Gin and Hollie on backing vocals.

A great night's entertainment. And at the Civic, one of the most under-used venues in this city. And then there's the Wintergarden too...

Grooverider pardoned.From Bigshot mag... "UK drum ‘n’ bass DJ Grooverider (Raymond Bingham) has been pardoned by the Dubai Royal Family. He was released from prison on Thursday after serving ten months of a four year sentence for possessing 2.16 grams of cannabis and pornographic material. Grooverider was arrested at Dubai airport last November, and although he claimed he was unaware of the contraband found in his bag and the country’s no-tolerance policiies, the DJ was convicted and imprisoned."

Thursday, September 04, 2008

In the third edition of Deutsche Grammophon's ReConfigured series, the duo have remade one of the most famous classical works of recent vintage, Ravel's "Bolero," as well as Mussorgsky’s "Bilder einer Ausstellung" and another Ravel piece entitled "Rapsodie Espagnola."

The album comes at a particularly classically-inclined time for both, as they'll be playing a show in Paris the day after this album's release in which they will perform what we're guessing will be one or more of the works on the record alongside one of classical music's minimalist icons, Steve Reich. The album follows in the wake of the two previous editions in the series, undertaken by Mattias Arfmann and Jimi Tenor." (link)

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

How Sonny Rollins beat heroin."In his six-decade career, legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins has claimed many a triumph. But his greatest may have come during a quiet period in Chicago." Link, plus videos.

New York Times" Offers Yet Another Lesson In How To Write A "Vinyl Is Back" Trend Piece"This week, the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times took on the "vinyl is back" trend, thus becoming the 1,495th publication in the United States to do so in the past year." From Idolator. Worth a read, very funny. Expect the same story to pop up in the Sunday Star Times any weekend now (The NZ Herald has already done this story, in Canvas, a while back).

Monday, September 01, 2008

Muxtape's Legal Defense To RIAA: Seriously, You Guys Should Just Leave Us AloneLink.From Silicon Alley Insider (that's their heading above), and Coolfer.

"... some questions were posed to Muxtape founder Justin Ouellette about Muxtape (his music sharing site that has attracted the attention of the RIAA):

• How is that legal? A non-answer.

• How to make money with Muxtape? Another non-answer.

• What happens when labels start calling? "I would like to work with all labels of all sizes and with individual artists.... Everything I've been thinking about for the future has been related to, What can we do to create an equitable landscape for everybody?"

Earlier, when asked about a scenario in which a label complained about copyright infringement, Ouellette said, "I have to honor that. I think that some people will make a decision that they don't want to interact in that space, and I think they're foolish not to. But I have to respect it. I really do."

Spring has sprung mixSome audio for you - just signed up to 8tracks.com (similar to muxtape) and made you a mix. Everything from Roots Manuva to Barrington Levy - the kind of stuff I spin on BaseFM. Enjoy. Let me know if you like it and I'll do another one.

How To Build an Album Art Wall on the Cheap"While sprucing up our place earlier this year, we decided the wall above our mantle could use some art. Rather than pony up for frames, artwork, or blown up photographs, I decided to take advantage of the cheap albums in the dollar bin of my local record store to add beautiful artwork to my living room. With just a few bucks and about 30 minutes, I built an album art wall to display some of my favorite album art—both for albums I love and for albums that I love to look at. The best part: You can easily switch out the albums on display any time. Here's how I did it." Link, Lifehacker.

What We Do Is Secret: Germs biopic"Rodger Grossman’s long-gestating portrait of the short-lived ’70s punk band the Germs, which was barred from playing Los Angeles clubs by the time it got around to recording an album, focuses on Darby Crash (Shane West), the now-textbook head case/“genius” who founded and disastrously fronted a band whose members couldn’t play their instruments...

... The film’s only watchable scenes are the musical performances, which are always chaotic, frequently mesmerizing, and come closest to reflecting punk’s grimy rawness. The rest is High School Musical with needles and dye jobs." Link. Trailer also.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Tune inCheck out ALT TV tonight at 10.30pm - I'm being interviewed by Gene Rivers on his show, Stereo Deluxe. Talking about the new EP, and he asked me to bring along five influential records to talk about too.